What is an Easter Egger?

Easter Egger: the chicken known for its colored eggs.  They are definitely a favorite on our farm!  But what exactly is an Easter Egger chicken and what's so great about them?

An Easter Egger is essentially a mutt chicken.  It isn't an official breed, but instead it's a cross of different breeds.  They are crossed specifically to obtain colored eggs.  For this reason, Easter Eggers don't have a specific "look".  They can look like anything.

Easter Eggers are well-known and loved for their colored eggs.  An Easter Egger can lay any color egg: cream, green, blue, pink, or brown, though pink is thought to be a brown egg with a heavy bloom (the protective layer that a hen deposits on her egg to protect the potential chick inside from outside contamination).

The color of the egg a hen lays is decided by the genes she carries.  This works in the same way as the genes that determine her feather colors.  Her feather colors don't change each day and neither will her egg color.  Whatever color a hen lays is the color she will always lay.

Keep in mind, it's not impossible, or even uncommon, for Easter Egger hens to lay brown eggs.  It takes a brown egg gene to make a green egg, so almost all Easter Egger flocks have brown egg genes in the gene pool.  A brown egg is not a disqualifier and it doesn't mean your Easter Egger is not an Easter Egger.

We love our Easter Egger flock.  They have sweet temperaments and are fun to watch.  Even our rooster is docile.

On our farm, we only hatch colored eggs in effort to improve the odds of the hatching hens laying green or blue eggs, but it doesn't eliminate the possibility that a hen will lay brown eggs.  Brown eggs are always a possibility with Easter Eggers.

Easter Eggers are my favorite chicks to hatch too.  Because they don't have a specific look to them, you never know what the chicks will look like until they pop out of the egg.

We are working on adding new feather colors and patterns to our Easter Egger flock to give even more color variations to our flocks look and making hatching even more fun.

We hope you will give Easter Eggers a chance and find the joy in yours that we have in ours every day.

🐣